(TibetanReview.net, Mar 19, 2009) — Tibet’s capital Lhasa, “the world’s highest city”, will be, by 2020, a 1,480 sq km zone with a 75 sq km urban section with its downtown population being less than 450,000, reported China’s official China Daily newspaper Mar 17. These are some of the main prescriptions for a “coordinated and distinctive modern metropolis” outlined in an urban planning scheme approved by the State Council, China’s cabinet, on Mar 16, the report said.

The State Council reportedly urged the local authorities to “cautiously preserve” the city’s architectural aesthetics, its massive cultural relics and omnipresent religious sites. “(Authorities) ought to coordinate the relations between the ancient and modern civilizations, between the old and new downtowns, and between natural and humanistic resources,” it was reported to have stressed.

The plan document reportedly envisions the city as an “economically prosperous, socially harmonious, and eco-friendly modern city with vivid cultural characteristics and deep ethnic traditions.”